# WaveMamba: Wavelet-Driven Mamba Fusion for RGB-Infrared Object Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.18173 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.18173/

## Key facts

- Cited by 14 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Point clouds, detection and remote sensing, one of 10 directions in State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba).
- Builds on 38 of its 98 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Jul 2025.

## Placed in

- State-space sequence models (S4, Mamba) / [Point clouds, detection and remote sensing](https://mlsanity.com/ssm/point-clouds-detection-and-remote-sensing/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 38)

- [Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-based Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02391/) (2016)
- [Mamba: Linear-Time Sequence Modeling with Selective State Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.00752/) (2023)
- [VMamba: Visual State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10166/) (2024)
- [Target-aware Dual Adversarial Learning and a Multi-scenario Multi-Modality Benchmark to Fuse Infrared and Visible for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.16220/) (2022)
- [LLVIP: A Visible-infrared Paired Dataset for Low-light Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10831/) (2021)
- [CDDFuse: Correlation-Driven Dual-Branch Feature Decomposition for Multi-Modality Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.14461/) (2022)
- [Drone-based RGB-Infrared Cross-Modality Vehicle Detection via Uncertainty-Aware Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.02437/) (2020)
- [Equivariant Multi-Modality Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11443/) (2023)
- [Wavelet-based Fourier Information Interaction with Frequency Diffusion Adjustment for Underwater Image Restoration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16845/) (2023)
- [Cross-Modality Fusion Transformer for Multispectral Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.00273/) (2021)
- [Multispectral Fusion for Object Detection with Cyclic Fuse-and-Refine Blocks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.12664/) (2020)
- [Text-IF: Leveraging Semantic Text Guidance for Degradation-Aware and Interactive Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.16387/) (2024)
- [Multispectral Deep Neural Networks for Pedestrian Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.02644/) (2016)
- [Wave-ViT: Unifying Wavelet and Transformers for Visual Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.04978/) (2022)
- [ICAFusion: Iterative Cross-Attention Guided Feature Fusion for Multispectral Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.07504/) (2023)
- [Illumination-aware Faster R-CNN for Robust Multispectral Pedestrian Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05347/) (2018)
- [Wavelet Convolutions for Large Receptive Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05848/) (2024)
- [DIDFuse: Deep Image Decomposition for Infrared and Visible Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.09210/) (2020)
- [Pan-Mamba: Effective pan-sharpening with State Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.12192/) (2024)
- [Multimodal Object Detection via Probabilistic Ensembling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02904/) (2021)
- [C2Former: Calibrated and Complementary Transformer for RGB-Infrared Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.16175/) (2023)
- [Translation, Scale and Rotation: Cross-Modal Alignment Meets RGB-Infrared Vehicle Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.13801/) (2022)
- [Cross-Modality Attentive Feature Fusion for Object Detection in Multispectral Remote Sensing Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02991/) (2021)
- [Explicit Attention-Enhanced Fusion for RGB-Thermal Perception Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.15710/) (2023)
- [Borrow from Anywhere: Pseudo Multi-modal Object Detection in Thermal Imagery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.08789/) (2019)
- [Multi-stage image denoising with the wavelet transform](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12394/) (2022)
- [Learning a Graph Neural Network with Cross Modality Interaction for Image Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03256/) (2023)
- [DAMSDet: Dynamic Adaptive Multispectral Detection Transformer with Competitive Query Selection and Adaptive Feature Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00326/) (2024)
- [SDWNet: A Straight Dilated Network with Wavelet Transformation for Image Deblurring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05803/) (2021)
- [DMM: Disparity-guided Multispectral Mamba for Oriented Object Detection in Remote Sensing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08132/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 14 of 14)

- [SLGNet: Synergizing Structural Priors and Language-Guided Modulation for Multimodal Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.02249/) (2026)
- [AlignFreeNet: Is Cross-Modal Pre-Alignment Necessary? An End-to-End Alignment-Free Lightweight Network for Visible-Infrared Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.20146/) (2025)
- [Representation Space Constrained Learning with Modality Decoupling for Multimodal Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.15433/) (2025)
- [Bridging the RGB-IR Gap: Consensus and Discrepancy Modeling for Text-Guided Multispectral Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.11234/) (2026)
- [GAAT: Geometry-Aware Alignment Transformer for Multimodal UAV Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.27971/) (2026)
- [MM-DETR: An Efficient Multimodal Detection Transformer with Mamba-Driven Dual-Granularity Fusion and Frequency-Aware Modality Adapters](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.00363/) (2025)
- [InfraNet: Quality-Aware RGB Guidance for Efficient Infrared Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.03795/) (2026)
- [Geometric Causal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.05153/) (2026)
- [DRPFNet: Dual-domain Residual Progressive Fusion Network for RGB-Thermal Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.03370/) (2026)
- [RegisterBridgeMM: A Register-Centric Framework for RGB-Infrared Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.04833/) (2026)
- [InterPruner: Interactive Structured Pruning via Taylor-Implicit Criterion and Language-Prior Modulator for Multimodal Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.10724/) (2026)
- [Aligned Radiometric RGB-Thermal Fusion for UAV Facade Anomaly Screening](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.12521/) (2026)
- [FoCal: Frequency-Oriented Cross-Modal Interaction and Spectral Calibration for Aerial Visible-Infrared Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29125/) (2026)
- [SAGE: Source-Anchored Guidance via Frequency Equalization for Hierarchical RGB-T Alignment and Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.30703/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Leveraging the complementary characteristics of visible (RGB) and infrared (IR) imagery offers significant potential for improving object detection. In this paper, we propose WaveMamba, a cross-modality fusion method that efficiently integrates the unique and complementary frequency features of RGB and IR decomposed by Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT). An improved detection head incorporating the Inverse Discrete Wavelet Transform (IDWT) is also proposed to reduce information loss and produce the final detection results. The core of our approach is the introduction of WaveMamba Fusion Block (WMFB), which facilitates comprehensive fusion across low-/high-frequency sub-bands. Within WMFB, the Low-frequency Mamba Fusion Block (LMFB), built upon the Mamba framework, first performs initial low-frequency feature fusion with channel swapping, followed by deep fusion with an advanced gated attention mechanism for enhanced integration. High-frequency features are enhanced using a strategy that applies an ``absolute maximum" fusion approach. These advancements lead to significant performance gains, with our method surpassing state-of-the-art approaches and achieving average mAP improvements of 4.5% on four benchmarks.